With the Fark “Hero” tag comes great responsibility

* Perhaps feeling dissed that my anti-weather rant ran afoul of our website’s unspoken, unclear policy about posting video, I submitted the video to the omnipowerful news aggregator Fark. Since then, I’ve racked up more than 10,000 viewers. Ten thousand. Unreal. Imagine how much ad revenue NBCChicago.com would have generated if we’d hosted the video…

One of the great things about Fark is the forum attached to every story. This morning, there are 145 comments applied to the video. Most overwhelmingly positive (toward me, anyway). I should print them out so the next time some insomniac loon e-mails Zoraida about how upset he is that our show is so awesome, I can point to the stack of love letters and feel bulletproof. Check them out if you want, but the language is quite salty.

Here’s a sampling of my favorites…

Ben Bowman is cute.

If only everyone was as awesome as the producer on that show….

I want to have Ben Bowman’s snarky babies!

As a fellow Chicago news producer, I say Amen brother.

We need more anchors to be like this guy, I might start watching news on TV again.

Turning this “plea” into another attempted ratings boost while continuing to churn out s****y content just proves that you are not only bad at your job…you are uninterested in being good at it. It’s not because you’re too stupid to realize what good news is, it’s because you’re unwilling to actually produce it.

I hate that our news media treats us all like retarded walnuts.

From what I’ve seen on air and behind the scenes, it seems like local news rooms are hotbeds of deep hatred and loathing.

This producer deserves a raise and a corner office.

Have you considered blowing your brains out on the air next time you decide to co-opt the news for your own self-righteous agenda?

The Fark Wilderness is a dangerous place, indeed. Plenty of comments were too blue to post here. The comment round-up is more gentle on this blog and YouTube…

I’m an NBC affiliate photog, and I just want to say after watching the clip, if you ever become a news director somewhere and I’m still in news, I will work for you. I really wanted to send the clip to my news director and EP, but I don’t think they would appreciate it, because they would say, “Look at the numbers.” And then I’d say, “Look at how stupid we’re making our audience.”

This is exactly the type of guy who gets fired for stuff like that, and yet this is exactly the type of producer who I will now follow to make sure I watch whatever program he works on after he gets fired.

Thank God for a sane man in news.

I’m always hesitant to seek out praise, but it does feel good. And this whole me-on-TV thing wasn’t my idea. It was Wendy’s. The credit (or blame) goes to her. I just do what the boss asks. It’s why we went weather-crazy last Monday and it’s why I went to war on Thursday. But now I step back into the machinery. Healthy debate is fine, but I’m a team player.

For the record, I have nothing against weather coverage. I agree with the concept of a meteorologist. And a traffic reporter is helpful. But when it snows 2″ and we act like God Almighty tore a hole through the planet and flaming magma storms are wiping out the populace, we need to take a step back, breathe, and remember that our viewers are smarter than we give them credit for.

* Have you seen this 9-year-old kid who wrote a book on how to pick up girls? I find him incredibly irritating, and not just because he’s probably notched twice as many babes as I have in one-third the time.

2 responses to “With the Fark “Hero” tag comes great responsibility”

You should do a rant on the traffic guys calling all the interstates by their “name” instead of number even though the number is what most people, especially those who actually watch the traffic news (visitors & those who’ve recently moved here) actually know them by. Who cares what the roads are “affectionately” known by.

Also I-294 does not go North/South even though TV news would like you to believe that.

Meteorologists, a 50¢ word for weather man, need to stop saying there’s a weather warning, when NOAA has issued no such warning. They just want you to stay home and watch the news, like there isn’t enough “news” on TV already. Nothing needs to be talked about that much. There was almost 12 hours of “news’ on WMAQ today, and most days.